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Rice Croquettes
One cup of cold boiled rice, a half teacup of sweet milk, one tablespoon of sugar, one teaspoon salt, a little lemon peel grated, one egg; let it get cold, then shape in oval balls; dip in egg, then in bread crumbs, or rolled crackers, and fry a rich brown in boiling lard.
A short, elliptical recipe that assumes the cook already knows how croquettes behave. The written instructions skip a step, and the missing step is the one that decides whether the balls hold together in the fat.
- The missing cooking stepAs written the mixture is assembled and then told to "get cold," but cold rice, milk and raw egg will not bind. Standard practice of the period was to heat the rice with the milk and sugar until thick, stir in the beaten egg off the heat and cook a moment more, then spread the paste on a plate to chill firm. A croquette formed from an unheated mixture will burst in the fat.
- Chill it properlyAn hour in the refrigerator, spread no more than an inch thick, is the minimum. Warm or slack paste will not take a coating and will not hold an oval.
- The egg does double dutyOne egg goes into the mixture and a second beaten egg is needed for the dipping. Thin the dipping egg with a tablespoon of water or milk so it coats rather than clings in curds.
- SaltA full teaspoon of salt in one cup of rice is heavy for a sweet croquette by modern palates; a half teaspoon is closer to modern taste. Rice croquettes of the period were made in both savoury and sweet versions, which may account for the seasoning.
- "Sweet milk"Simply fresh whole milk, named to distinguish it from the sour milk and buttermilk that a nineteenth-century kitchen also kept on hand. Half a teacup is roughly a third of a cup, though teacups varied; measure loosely and add more if the rice will not soften.
- Boiling lardLard is never actually boiled. The phrase means fat hot enough to bubble vigorously around the food, somewhere in the region of 350 to 375F. Too cool and the crumbs soak; too hot and the coating browns before the interior warms through. Neutral oil works if lard is unavailable.
- Rolled crackersPlain soda or water crackers crushed fine with a rolling pin. They give a sandier, lighter crust than bread crumbs; panko is closer in texture than modern fine dry crumbs.
- Yield and servingOne cup of cooked rice makes roughly six to eight small croquettes, enough for three or four as a side or a light sweet. Serve hot with a fruit sauce or jelly.
Croquettes were among the most useful things a nineteenth-century cook could know, because they turned yesterday's leftovers into something that looked deliberate. The name comes from the French croquer, to crunch, and the technique arrived in English and American kitchens through the same channel as most fried and sauced cookery of the era: French professional practice, filtered through household manuals. Rice versions appear across the period in both savory and sweet form, sometimes served with meat, sometimes with jelly or a fruit sauce as a modest dessert. The lemon peel and sugar here point firmly toward the sweet side. The terse style of this entry is typical of the genre, written for someone assumed to have made croquettes before.